Uyuni and the Salt Flats Day One

Thursday November 4.

Took an overnight bus from La Paz to Uyuni in Southern Bolivia. The first half of the ride was okay and on good roads, but after 1am the road became unpaved and very bumpy and noisy. Couldn´t sleep much. When the sun came up, we could see that we were in a very remote, dry area. Arrived in Uyuni at 6:30 where I was picked up by a company and taken to their small office. (Very cold here, about ten degrees, as we are in a high altitude desert.) There I met Brendan and Giovanna, from Ireland. The three of us went to a small restuarant for breakfast. Had to wait until 10:30 before our guide, and the other three in our group, (James and Simon from England and Sogo from Japan), and our Toyota 4x4 arrived.

Finally all together and underway. We all speak English, except our guide who speaks only Spanish! First stop a train graveyard where they ditch old trains to rust in the desert. Then we drove to the edge of the salt flats where they were doing some ´mining´by hand. There there were some buildings built out of salt blocks and selling tourist stuff.

Then we drove out into the salt flats. Brilliantly white, and dead flat. We stopped for photos and played with perspective and standing on things. Then we drove to an ´island´in the middle of the salt. It was covered in large cactus, like in Arizona. We climbed up to the top of the island and had spectacular views of the salt flats. When we climbed down our guide had prepared a picnic lunch for us that was quite good. Then we played with the cameras some more, taking more shots of mixed up perspectives.

We finished riding across the flats and into the desert, to the small town of San Juan. We checked into a small hotel, with no running water and very basic accommodation. I bunked with Sogo. I went for a walk exploring this dirty, dusty, incredibly remote town. I found the cemetary, which was all decked out with flowers from the Day of the Dead celebrations from a couple of days ago. I also found a beat up school, with a new one apparently built behind it. Cool, windy, dusty place. I can´t imagine living way out here!

Dinner was okay and slept pretty well.